Hi folks,

Another 'almost-update' has been posted at:

http://www2.projectpluto.com/new.htm

NOTE THE 'WWW2'. The '2' is needed because my Internet provider is
swapping my site to a newer, faster server. The '2' ought to be
temporary; if you get "URL Not Found" messages, the move has been
completed and you can drop the '2'.

I made two significant changes (plus some small fixes to problems
reported with the previous 'almost-update'). The first was caused by
Masaki Kouda's suggestion:

> I hope Guide can do as:
>
> (1) Make prediction of visible sattelites
> (2) Click on the TIME data of prediction
> (3) Guide set date & time to that TIME data, and redraw.

I like this idea, but it does not go far enough. It should be
applied to many of Guide's tables. Get a list of lunar phases and
click on one, and Guide should show you the moon on that date. Get a
list of Jovian satellite events and click on "Io enters shadow", and
Guide should set the date & time accordingly and redraw. And so on.

_Some_ of this is done (there are _many_ tables in Guide). Details
are on the above page.

The second change involves the geographic names shown on eclipse
charts. A few people have sent corrections, and there is now
information so that Guide does not let the text for a small city "block
out" the text for a larger city.

Jost wrote:

> It would be wonderful, if Guide can do additional all things like
> http://www.heavens-above.com (including the worldwide location
> source:-) as predicting satellite charts of the sky and Iridium flares.

I recently got a source of two million place-names (I think the same
list as that used by the above site). Two million is, perhaps, too
many... but I am pretty sure Guide 8 will have a larger set of names
than Guide 7 did.

Iridium flare predictions in Guide are possible, but not likely to
happen really soon.

-- Bill